In many operations dealing with the manufacture of cords, which are composed of a multiplicity of strands, it is required that parallel strands run through process equipment and that a precise strand count be maintained in the cord product that is being produced. In any such operation it is not uncommon for one or more of the strands, which are to make up the final product cord, to break thereby resulting in an inadequate strand count in the final product. When a strand from a group of parallel strands passing through a given operation breaks, it becomes necessary to rethread the broken strand so that satisfactory product can be produced again.
Thus, for example, in running a plurality of strands through a drying oven to cure coating contained on them, it is conventional practice to rethread a broken strand to adjacent running strands in order to rethread the broken end. This is normally done utilizing a rectangular shaped dog-bone clip fashioned with suitable points of attachment for the running strands and the broken strands. This system works reasonably well when a strand located between two adjacent running strands in a group is broken. However, if an end strand in a given group breaks, difficulties are encountered using the conventional dog-bone lip. This difficulty is caused by the fact that the running strands tend to cause the dog-bone clip to turn from its normal horizontal mode to a vertical one. When the clip passes over the guide equipment such as pulleys utilized to draw parallel running strands through drying ovens, the parallel strands tend to come together and not fall into their proper pulley channel, thus resulting in the production of products which contain too many strands for a given cord product or too few strands for a given cord product.
In U.S. Pat. No. 882,027, filed Feb. 28, 1978, an apparatus for threading moving strands is disclosed which provides some assistance to the skilled artisan in rethreading broken strands in a given operation. While this clip is useful in many instances it suffers one disadvantage if the broken strand is an end strand of a given group. For example, in the production of tire cord utilized in reinforcing rubber tire stock, it is common practice in the industry to feed groups of strands after they have been coated with an elastomeric latex through suitable drying ovens to cure the latex on the glass strands. For a given cord product groups of strands or tows are fed through the oven in parallel positions so that the final product for example, might be a finished cord which has three running strands per cord. If the end strand of a given group of three that will be utilized to manufacture a given cord breaks, utilizing the aforementioned threading clip to rethread, would involve the stopping of an adjacent group of three in order for the broken strand to be threaded in between two running strands. While the two groups of three strands are stopped for this rethreading operation, two production positions are removed from service until the necessary attachment was made which significantly affects overall production efficiency. Thus, there is a need to provide for rethreading broken strands which are contained in any given grouping of strands utilized to make up a single product and which permits only the effected group of strands to be stopped for a rethreading operation. By virtue of the instant invention a rethreading clip suitable for this purpose is provided.